Computers age more quickly than other equipment does, partially because the computer manufacturers are always coming out with newer, better, faster and cheaper components that expand the capacity of a computer and reduce its cost at the same time. This fact, along with several habits users may adopt, can add up to a slow computer.

Eliminating Bad Habits That Can Lead To A Slow Computer

What You’re Doing: Storing files on the desktop. This sneaky little habit can cause your computer to devote extra memory to your OS on top of what it’s already devoted to the file system. Each document or other item that is stored on the desktop takes up valuable operating memory.
What You Should Be Doing: Saving your files in the file system. Microsoft creates folders like your Downloads and Document folders to help you avoid storing files on the desktop. Use these folders when you download files or create documents. If you don’t like doing that, develop a structure within your file system to save your files. Don’t store anything on the desktop!

What You’re Doing: Running the standard installation routine. When you download or install a new application, the Setup.exe file or the installer file usually has a pre-programmed installation routine that stores the application files in a particular place in the file structure. It also adds the other files (like libraries) you may need to get the application to work properly. The installer routine often enters your new application into the “startup items” file set, meaning that the new application will start automatically. It also adds the application to the Start Menu and/or Task Bar, and puts an icon on the desktop.
What You Should Be Doing: Select “Custom Install” to look at exactly what the installer plans to do. Eliminate the extras like the Start Menu add-on, the startup items entry, the desktop alias and/or the Task Bar add-on. Start programs that you won’t use every day manually. The more extras you can eliminate from the standard installation routine, the better off you’ll be.

In my next post, we’ll cover three other tips that can help you change your work habits as they relate to your slow computer. Once you’ve purchased a computer, you can’t improve your hardware performance very much – at least not without spending more money. You can correct work habits that rob your computer of operating memory and lead to a slow computer, however!

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If your computer suddenly slows to an agonizing pace, you may be tempted to think that a virus or other type of malware is the problem. You may race to perform anti-virus scans or malware scans, and start thinking about what you’ve downloaded recently. The good news is that not all computer slowdowns are the result of malware or viruses.

Don’t Jump To Conclusions

When you’re trying to diagnose a slow computer, it’s important NOT to jump to conclusions about what the problem might be. An erroneous diagnosis can produce a great deal of unnecessary work, lost time and rarely gets you to the correct solution.

It’s never a bad idea to scan your computer regularly for viruses and malware. In fact, your anti-virus and anti-malware programs should be set to update themselves automatically, and should also be set to scan your computer frequently. For computers that have a reliable and trusted anti-virus/anti-malware program running on them, a viral infection is rarely my first suspect when a slowdown occurs.

I like to look at the performance of the computer to see if there’s something specific that’s causing the computer to misbehave. I also like to know what’s running at the moment. The Task Manager can give you an instant look at which applications and processes are running. A word of caution: don’t kill a process or application simply because you don’t recognize it by name. Some necessary OS processes have strange names. Take a moment to figure out what’s consuming the CPU’s time. If a process is consuming 100% or nearly 100% of the CPU, you may want to end that particular task, though.

Perfmon is a built-in tool from Microsoft that can provide a detailed graphical look at what your CPU is doing. This is a good troubleshooting tool that can help you pinpoint trouble because you can see the impact of starting and stopping applications instantly. It will also show you the impact of even simple things, like moving the mouse cursor around the screen. Use this tool in conjunction with the Task Manager to pinpoint applications that are misbehaving or that don’t get along with other applications you may have running on your computer.

Once you locate the troubled application(s), check with the software publisher to see if an update to your software has been published. If so, apply it, and any other patches to the OS that you may have missed.

If that doesn’t resolve the issue, consider running a registry cleaner like RegCure to remove registry entries that have been left behind or replaced with newer ones.

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No one likes dealing with a slow computer. For most people, the source of the slowdown isn’t evident, and that makes troubleshooting even harder. More often than not, low computer performance seems to sneak into the picture, often leaving users wondering exactly what’s happened.

There Are Things You Can Do To Speed Up Your Computer!

If you’re looking for an immediate burst of speed, try eliminating open programs, document windows, and processes that don’t need to run all the time, even in the background. Don’t look for “savings” by turning off your virus or malware protection. These software packages need to run all the time. Also you can uninstall software that is unwanted, great to free up more PC resources. Also, try closing applications as you finish with them and paring down the apps that automatically load when you run the computer. Remove excess fonts, foreign language support and other items that may be part of a standard installation routine, but are for the most part unnecessary.

Add more memory to your computer. If your computer isn’t already maxed out on memory, consider installing the maximum amount of memory allowed by the computer’s design. Don’t bother installing more than the maximum and be sure you get the type of memory recommended for your computer. Too much, too little or the wrong kind of memory can cause serious performance degradations and will generally make your computing experience intolerable.

Clean, clean, clean. Clean out unneeded files from the file system. Remove all files that you’ve “temporarily” stored on the desktop. Remove unused applications, demo programs that may have come loaded with your computer when it was brand new, and eliminate temporary files. (Don’t eliminate temporary folders because many apps need those. Just eliminate the files inside.) Defragment your hard disk regularly to make the most use of your newfound disk space. Clean your registry.

Some people ask if cleaning a registry is necessary and I always say, “Only if you want your computer to run efficiently.” Cleaning out your registry periodically removes all of the “build-up” that would otherwise get left behind by applications that have been uninstalled, drivers and other components that have been replaced or upgraded, and old configurations. You don’t appreciate how quickly these can add up to diminished performance until you run a registry cleaner. I recommend RegCure for the task. It’s complete, easy-to-use and very thorough. It also makes a backup of your registry before it makes any changes, so reverting to your previous state is as easy as pie.

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When it comes to your poor typing skills, ff you’re hoping to blame a slow computer on stiff joints in your hands, hold that thought. A new study just published in the journal Arthritis Care and Research shows that people who suffered from rheumatoid arthritis could type just as fast as subjects who did not suffer from the disease. The study did show that the best predictors of typing ability were training and the age of the typist.

Improving Computer Skills Can Improve Speed

If you avoid using the computer because your data entry skills are lacking, consider taking a typing course or working with typing software. There are several free online typing test sites that can help you measure your typing speed and accuracy. Most sites are associated with a typing tutor program or software that is designed to help you learn how to touch-type.

In addition to online sites that can help measure your typing skills, you can consider using typing tutor software. The software will provide typing exercises that will help you learn the keyboard without having to look at the keys. Believe it or not, looking at the keyboard actually slows you down when it comes to typing! Your brain must verify the location of the keys you’re looking for. That visual confirmation actually reduces the efficiency of your data entry.

Worried about making mistakes? When you use programs like word processors, you can enable spell-checking and automatic error correction. Even if you type a word incorrectly, the computer can often figure out what you meant and make the appropriate substitutions. One word of caution regarding spell checking: the spell-checker won’t correct grammatical errors or word misuse. For example, if you mean to type “the” but accidentally type “she” the spell-checker will not flag the mistake because, after all, “she” is spelled correctly.

Some more advanced word processing programs also offer grammar checkers that may or may not flag misused words. Grammar checkers are not as sophisticated as spell-checkers, primarily because there is widespread agreement on the spelling of a word, whereas the rules of grammar are often circumstantial.

You can also benefit by working with tutorials or taking classes on more complicated computer applications, like spreadsheets and databases. Learning how to get the results you want from your software can improve your performance, which may make the computer seem to work a little faster for you!

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If you’ve already made the conversion from some other version of Windows to Windows 7, you should have noticed that the boot time for the Windows 7 computer is noticeably faster than earlier versions of the OS. In Windows Vista, Microsoft played some games with how the OS loads to give the illusion that the computer was booting faster than it really was. Microsoft was hoping to leave you with the impression that you didn’t have a slow computer after all.

Boot Up And Wait

The shell game works until you want to use a part of the OS that the computer hasn’t loaded yet. You know the drill: click on something and wait… and wait… and wait. With Windows Vista, the OS would “guess” what you were interested in using based upon the applications you normally use. When you did something unexpected, your reward was waiting for the OS to finish loading.

With Windows 7, Microsoft has streamlined the bootup routine and has removed some bottlenecks that added precious second (which always feel like hours) to the boot time of the computer. No games this time; the computer really does boot faster than it did. (It shuts down faster, too but that’s a different post.)

Microsoft has identified a condition that could affect some computers running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 that will indeed cause the computer to boot much more slowly than it should. The bug occurs when computers running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 are connected to a high-resolution monitor that is set to some value other than 96 dpi. Bootup can be very slow under this particular configuration.

For most users, this won’t have any impact because the default dpi display setting is 96 dpi. If you’ve gone into the Control Panel and tweaked the dpi setting to make your on-screen display smaller or larger than the default, you could have a slow boot experience the next time you fire up the computer. To eliminate the problem, switch the default dpi display setting back to 96 dpi. If you gotta be you and use a different dpi setting, Microsoft does have a hotfix available for this little gotcha.

Under most circumstances, your boot times should be pretty speedy with Windows 7. If you do experience slowness, or you want to avoid acquiring a slow computer over time, consider loading RegCure onto your Windows 7 computer. RegCure is a trusted registry cleaner and works on all versions of Windows. RegCure can help keep your computer running as quickly as the manufacturer intended.

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